ECDC FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME EUPHEM Scientific Guide

Guidelines for making poster presentations

Many people (including epidemiologists) consider posters to be less important than an oral presentation.
However, the poster medium affords certain strong advantages in communicating the results of your research or
investigation:

• Posters can be viewed during at least several hours

• Data and graphics on posters are available as long as an individual wishes
• The viewer can go forwards and backwards through the poster
• The poster allows you to more personally interact with the people who are interested in your research
• A poster attracts audience that is really interested in your work

Poster presentations are organised in poster sessions, and poster sessions belonging thematically to the same
overall topic are organised in separate poster areas.

Poster papers minimise clashes caused by many parallel sessions and there is more time reserved for the
presentation and for the viewing of poster papers than for oral ones. During the EPIET scientific seminar, over
50% of all presentations were poster presentations.

In general, for each poster a poster board is reserved with a clear dimension listed in the instruction for
authors. The number of each poster paper and of its corresponding poster board is given in the appropriate
session programme.

The display time is the time for the actual display of all posters of a poster session or of a group of sessions
and displayed in the conference programme. Authors are asked to put up their posters as soon and to take them
down as late as possible, in order to enable the conference participants to view their posters any time within this
time allocation.

The authors in attendance time is the time when the respective authors of a poster session must be present
at their display for presentation.

Preparing a poster
The standard format of a poster follows that of an oral scientific presentation and includes Introduction,
Methods, Results, Conclusions; Recommendations. A poster, like an oral presentation, cannot (and should not)
contain all information you have on the topic. Scientific posters should stimulate interest rather than provide a
detailed presentation. If all text is kept to a minimum (1000 words), a person should fully read your poster in
less than 10 minutes. Since there will be many other posters, you must make sure your poster is interesting and
visually slick if you hope to attract viewers.

• First, read the instructions supplied by the meeting organisers! Having an idea about these details
before you begin will make the whole process much easier.
• Re-read your abstract once again - are the statements still accurate? The presentation must cover the
same material as the abstract. Do not include an abstract on a poster!
• General guidelines:
– Artistry does not substitute for content. The relevance of the poster to field epidemiology should
be apparent to viewers.

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ECDC FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME EUPHEM Scientific Guide

– Think of the raw layout of your poster beforehand. Place the title at the top. Start with the
Introduction at the upper left, finish with the recommendations at the lower right, with methods
and results filling the central space.
– Use short sentences, simple words, and bullets to illustrate your points.
– Text should be broken up by including graphics or photos.
– Self-explanatory graphics should dominate the poster. The success of a poster directly relates to
the clarity of your illustrations and tables!
– Avoid using jargon, acronyms, or unusual abbreviations.
– Use a non-serif font (e.g., Arial) for the poster.
– The poster (text and graphics) should be easily readable from a distance of about 2 metres. As a
thumb rule, the text should be readable if the poster is printed out on an A4 sheet (e.g. Arial >24
points).

• Title: Title should be in large fonts (e.g. Arial >80 points) and attract potential viewers. If possible,
institute logos or affiliations should be minimised in size and put in the lower corner of the poster, or,
alternatively, next to the title.
• Introduction: Get your viewer interested about the issue or question while using the absolute minimum of
background information and definitions. Put the objectives of your study at the end of your introduction.
• Methods: Be short, but precise. State what study design you used and define your study population.
Provide a case definition, if applicable. Mention statistical, laboratory and other methods that were used.
• Results: Briefly provide descriptive results (response rate, age and sex distribution). Present data that
more specifically addresses the hypothesis and refer to supporting charts or images. Tables and graphs
should stand on their own.
– A minimal amount of text materials should supplement the graphic materials.
– Use regions of empty space between poster elements to differentiate and accentuate these
elements.
– Graphic materials should be readable at a distance of 1.5-2.0 metres. The font size should be at
least 1 cm high. Lines in illustrations should be larger than normal.
– Use colours for emphasis, but do not overuse (2-3 colours are usually enough). Avoid using
patterns or open bars in histograms.
– Remove all non-essential information from graphs and tables (data curves not discussed by the
poster; excess grid lines in tables).
– Graphics and tables should have a complete title and legend.
• Conclusion and recommendations: Comment on main results and discuss why they are conclusive and
interesting. Discuss potential biases. What are your recommendations?
• Acknowledgments/further information: Thank individuals for specific contributions to project; mention
who has provided funding. Provide your e-mail address for further information.

Making the poster

• Preparing a poster takes time. Plan for a minimum of one week.
• Usually a presentation software such as PowerPoint will be used. Format your PowerPoint slide on the size
you’ll like to have it printed (ex 90x130 cm) by using the menu data -> format page. You can insert your
text and graphics directly on that slide or copy-paste it from a Word document or a PowerPoint slide.
• Print the poster in an A4 format to check for layout, colours, font size and spelling errors before printing it
in large size.
• After the poster is printed in large format, changes are no longer possible.
• It is often useful to make a handout of your poster for distribution during the poster session.

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ECDC FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME EUPHEM Scientific Guide

Usually, all the material necessary for attaching the poster to the poster board is available in the respective
poster area. Still, you may want to bring some pins or thumbtacks, just in case.

An example of a poster (FETP India, source Dr. Yvan Hutin) can be seen here: